What do we know about soil carbon destabilization?

Bailey, Vanessa; Pries, Caitlin Hicks; Lajtha, Kate

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab2c11

Cited by 131 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 177 publications

(215 reference statements)

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“…7). Major disagreements occur for the estimate of Balmaseda et al (2013) which is obtained from an ocean reanalysis and known to provide higher heat gain compared to results derived strictly from observations (Meyssignac et al, 2019). Over the last quarter of a decade this Earth heat inventory reports -in agreement with previous publications -an increased rate of Earth heat uptake reaching up to 0.9 W m −2 (Fig.…”

Section: The Earth Heat Inventory: Where Does the Energy Go?supporting

confidence: 73%

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Schuckmann

Cheng

Palmer

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

210

237

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Abstract. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2. Over the period 1971–2018 (2010–2018), the majority of heat gain is reported for the global ocean with 89 % (90 %), with 52 % for both periods in the upper 700 m depth, 28 % (30 %) for the 700–2000 m depth layer and 9 % (8 %) below 2000 m depth. Heat gain over land amounts to 6 % (5 %) over these periods, 4 % (3 %) is available for the melting of grounded and floating ice, and 1 % (2 %) is available for atmospheric warming. Our results also show that EEI is not only continuing, but also increasing: the EEI amounts to 0.87±0.12 W m−2 during 2010–2018. Stabilization of climate, the goal of the universally agreed United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and the Paris Agreement in 2015, requires that EEI be reduced to approximately zero to achieve Earth's system quasi-equilibrium. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would need to be reduced from 410 to 353 ppm to increase heat radiation to space by 0.87 W m−2, bringing Earth back towards energy balance. This simple number, EEI, is the most fundamental metric that the scientific community and public must be aware of as the measure of how well the world is doing in the task of bringing climate change under control, and we call for an implementation of the EEI into the global stocktake based on best available science. Continued quantification and reduced uncertainties in the Earth heat inventory can be best achieved through the maintenance of the current global climate observing system, its extension into areas of gaps in the sampling, and the establishment of an international framework for concerted multidisciplinary research of the Earth heat inventory as presented in this study. This Earth heat inventory is published at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ, https://www.dkrz.de/, last access: 7 August 2020) under the DOI https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_EXP_v2 (von Schuckmann et al., 2020).

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Section: The Earth Heat Inventory: Where Does the Energy Go?supporting

confidence: 73%

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Schuckmann

Cheng

Palmer

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

210

237

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“…In other words, the ability of consumers of OM pool i to consume other pools increases the functional lability of pool i . This provides a mechanistic explanation for the observed ‘priming effect’ in which the addition of other substrates allows for the metabolization of a given pool 42,43,34 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The threshold, Q = 1, is set by the dynamics of the microbial populations that consume the OM pools. Q = 1 represents an ecological threshold along a continuum of OM and microbial characteristics that encompasses a variety of mechanistic factors, including those known to influence recalcitrance such as thermodynamic limitations 39 , enzymatic control 33 , mineral protection 40,43,51 , and molecular properties 19 . The nonlinear behavior of the threshold suggests that small changes in the environment can drive large depletions or accumulations of OM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unified theory for organic matter accumulation

Zakem

Levine

Cael

2020

Preprint

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Organic matter constitutes a key reservoir in global elemental cycles and the biological sequestration of carbon. However, our understanding of the dynamics of organic matter and its accumulation remains incomplete. Seemingly disparate hypotheses have been proposed to explain organic matter accumulation: the slow degradation of intrinsically recalcitrant substrates, the depletion to concentrations that inhibit microbial consumption, and a dependency on the consumption capabilities of nearby microbial populations. Here, using a mechanistic model, we develop a theoretical framework that explains how organic matter predictably accumulates due to biochemical, ecological, and environmental factors. The new framework subsumes the previous hypotheses. Changes in the microbial community or the environment can move a class of organic matter from a state of functional recalcitrance to a state of depletion by microbial consumers. The model explains the vertical profile of dissolved organic carbon in the ocean, and it connects microbial activity at subannual timescales to organic matter turnover at millenial timescales. The threshold behavior of the model implies that organic matter accumulation may respond nonlinearly to changes in temperature and other factors, providing hypotheses for the observed correlations between organic carbon reservoirs and temperature in past earth climates.

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“…These radiatively relevant processes include the stability and extent of the continental areas occupied by permafrost soils. Alterations of the thermal conditions at these locations have the potential to release longterm stored CO2 and CH4, and may also destabilize the recalcitrant soil carbon (Bailey et al, 2019;Hicks Pries et al, 2017). Both of these processes are potential "tipping points" (Lenton et al, 2019(Lenton et al, , 2008Lenton, 2011) leading to possible positive feedbacks on the climate system (Leifeld et al, 2019;MacDougall et al, 2012).…”

Section: Heat Available To Warm Landmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stored in the Earth system: Where does the energy go? The GCOS Earth heat inventory team

Schuckmann¹,

Cheng²,

Palmer³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is a fundamental metric of climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system from this accumulated heat – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory, and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the past 58 years, with a total heat gain of 393 &pm; 40 ZJ, which is equivalent to a heating rate of 0.42 &pm; 0.04 W m−2. The majority of the heat gain (89 %) takes place in the global ocean (0–700 m: 53 %; 700–2000 m: 28 %; > 2000 m: 8 %), while it amounts to 6 % for the land heat gain, to 4 % available for the melting of grounded and floating ice, and to 1 % for atmospheric warming. These new estimates indicate a larger contribution of land and ice heat gain (10 % in total) compared to previous estimates (7 %). There is a regime shift of the Earth heat inventory over the past 2 decades, which appears to be predominantly driven by heat sequestration into the deeper layers of the global ocean, and a doubling of heat gain in the atmosphere. However, a major challenge is to reduce uncertainties in the Earth heat inventory, which can be best achieved through the maintenance of the current global climate observing system, its extension into areas of gaps in the sampling, as well as to establish an international framework for concerted multi-disciplinary research of the Earth heat inventory. Earth heat inventory is published at DKRZ (https://www.dkrz.de/) under the doi: https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_EXP (von Schuckmann et al., 2020).

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What do we know about soil carbon destabilization?

Cited by 131 publications

References 177 publications

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

A unified theory for organic matter accumulation

Heat stored in the Earth system: Where does the energy go? The GCOS Earth heat inventory team

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